An opening gain on Wall Street after the key jobless figures - though bad - came in no worse than expected has helped lift the UK market.

After threatening to establish a new six year low, the FTSE 100 is now 50.49 points ahead at 3580.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up around 150 points after non-farm payrolls showed a 651,000 increase in jobless numbers. This was pretty much in line with forecasts of 648,000 and a lot less than the more apocalyptic suggestions of a 750,000 decline.

With relatively positive talk from China about its economy pushing metal prices higher, miners are benefiting. BHP Billiton is 78p better at £11.85, while Rio Tinto has risen 104p to £18.37.

But insurers are still unwanted on concerns about their capital positions, with Aviva down another 17.2p at 172.7p.

BT is another big faller, down 7.2p to 76.2p on suggestions it might have to pump up to £750m into its pension fund. Analysts at Morgan Stanley moved their recommendation from equal weight to underweight because of the pension concerns, saying:

"[We estimate] the actuarial deficit [at] around £6.6bn at December 2008, even without any changes to longevity assumptions. Worse still, falls in asset prices since then mean the deficit will have grown by a further £2bn, we estimate. And while we have limited detail on the comparability of longevity assumptions, a read-across from Royal Mail suggests the deficit could reach £10 billion, based on Royal Mail management commentary.

"We now consider £500m per annum a minimum top-up level (previously a maximum), with £750m a possibility if pension trustees take a more conservative view on deficit recovery. Either way, the shares still yield less than the sector with cash breakeven at Global Services (currently losing around £300m a year) still some way off in our view."